Dordogne《田园记》- An indie game with Chinese voice over

I am always on the lookout for suitable games for a Chinese learner, and when I came across Dordogne on Steam, I was surprised to see a tick next to Chinese for full audio. Does that mean there’s Chinese audio in this game made by a French company? Could it be a mistake?

After discovering that it’s available on Xbox Game Pass, it was a no-brainer for me to pick this one up and find out how well it works as a Chinese learning material.

I quickly discovered it was no mistake; there really are Chinese voice-acted scenes. This is my first time seeing a non-Chinese indie game that includes Chinese voice over!

Voice acting is not the only aspect that makes Dordogne great for Chinese learners. Read on to find out what else makes this a great game!

About the game

In Dordogne, you play as Mimi, who revisits her late grandmother’s old home in Dordogne, France, and rediscovers her lost memories from a summer holiday many, many years ago.

As Mimi recollects her childhood memories, she confronts her adult choices and uncovers lost family secrets.

As a player, you will explore the beautiful hand-drawn colourful landscapes of Dordogne, discover collectables, write journal entries, solve simple puzzles and much more. All while listening to beautiful music and immersing in the story and adventures of Mimi and her late grandmother.

Trailer

Narration

Dordogne is a narrative and storytelling game first and a puzzle game second.

The narration is a mix of the present day and memories of the past, and it’s broken into several chapters.

Each chapter starts with the adult present-day Mimi discovering an area or object in her late grandmother’s house, which triggers her to recollect a memory from the summer holiday she stayed with her grandmother.

It would then switch to the young child Mimi, where the rest of the chapter would be played out.

Gameplay

The gameplay and controls are relatively simple. Players navigate beautifully hand-drawn areas, interacting with objects and people and solving simple puzzles.

There’s also an element of collecting where you can collect various things such as stickers, words, photos, sound clips, letters and cassette tapes. The stickers, words, sound clips and photos can be used in Mimi’s scrapbook, where the young Mimi will make a new page at the end of each chapter. The letters and cassette tapes are part of the story, which will enable Mimi to discover more about her late grandparents and her parents.

I felt the controls were a little awkward, particularly with a controller. Selecting, turning and moving objects are a little easier with a mouse. However, the game mechanics are simple enough that it doesn’t matter that it’s a little odd.

Xbox Cloud Gaming Experience

Dordogne is available with the Xbox Game Pass for cloud gaming and local download. I started Dordogne on Xbox Cloud Gaming via my Steam Deck but eventually moved to downloading a copy on my PC and playing the local offline version.

Xbox Cloud Gaming is a great service, enabling players to play games anywhere on pretty much any device, but unfortunately, I had some bad latency issues, particularly during peak times, which meant that it was impossible for me to play.

As a Chinese learning material

Despite not being a Chinese game, Dordogne is still a good choice for intermediate Chinese learners.

As the story’s main focus is on young Mimi’s summer holiday in a country home, the dialogue between her and her grandmother usually involves simple, modern, everyday vocabulary.

The text size used in the dialogues is quite large, with an easy-to-read font. It’s a great experience on smaller scenes like the Nintendo Switch and the Steam Deck.

I tested out how well Google Lens picks up the Chinese characters in Dordogne, and the result is fantastic. It worked perfectly every time.

There is Mandarin Chinese voice-over, which is great for honing your listening skills. The subtitles for the voiced cutscenes are displayed in yellow with a black background, which I feel could be a little difficult to read for some players.

The most challenging aspect for a language learner is the letters. They are long and wordy, and a few of them contain some technical terms.

Due to the difficulty level of the letters, I’ve eventually decided to place Dordogne under the intermediate level; otherwise, this would be an excellent game for newcomers. Newcomers or those with HSK4 knowledge can still try this. With OCR translation apps such as Google Lens, getting through those letters shouldn’t be too much of an issue.

Final Thoughts

I’m still so surprised I discovered this Chinese learning gem. Honestly, I would never have expected a Mandarin Chinese voiceover in an indie game!

As much as I enjoyed Dordogne, I wouldn’t pay the full price for it, but it’s definitely worth considering during a sale.

If you have a PC or a portable gaming device like the Steam Deck or Lenovo Legion Go, it’s worth looking into options such as Xbox Game Pass. Since it is only a 4-5-hour game, it suits the Game Pass model perfectly.